Thursday, April 14, 2016

Oats Rava Ladoo is a delicious yet simple sweet dish to serve. It's easy to make & consumes very less time in making. This ladoo consists of oats, sooji for the grainy texture, sugar & other few ingredients to make it flavorful. There are different variations in oat ladoo's, but today I'm sharing the easiest recipe here. Make & enjoy this dish for Sri Rama Navami. You can make these healthy Ragi Oats Ladoo, Ragi Rava ladoo or try these other recipes like Rava Ladoo, Besan ladoo & Thokkudu Ladoo for this Ram Navami festival.

Now mix them well using your hand or a spatula. Rub ghee to your palm & scoop up a little mixture to form ladoo.

Make ladoo's with rest of the mixture. Store them in a air tight container for freshness & enjoy them.

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Sunday, March 30, 2014

Ugadi/Yugadi or Gudi Padwa represents a start of new year & is celebrated in Andhra, Karnataka & Maharashtra. On this day we make a chutney with 6 different taste which are called "Shadruchulu" in telugu & is offered to god.

Image Courtesy : Google Images

Other than this chutney they make purnam poli or obbatu, which consists of channa dal & jaggrey as filling. Along with it they also make pulihora, it is believed auspicious to offer yellow rice to god on any festival. I'm sharing a couple of recipe that can be offered to god on this auspicious day.
Few sweets dishes to celebrate ugadi & many more coming.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Deepavali/Diwali is also known as "Festival of Lights" celebrated on the occasion of Satyabhama killing the Narakasura.This festival is celebrated for 3days starting with dhana trayodasi , naraka chaturdashi & deepavali amavasya. Deepavali is a fun filled festival to all of us. We get to have yummy homemade sweets & savories along with fire crackers. My maternal grandparents used to visit us & deepavali in my chilhood & it was always memorable.

Deepavali 2012

On dhana trayodasi we pray to Maha lakshmi devi for wealth & prosperity. There is a saying that we should purchase gold on this day. The actual thing is on this day you have to invite guest to your house & serve him nice food along with tamboolam. In which you are suppose to add at least a gram of gold & offer the tamboolam to guest.
So taking todays gold prices in to consideration I limit myself with lakshmi pooja on this day.. :)

Deepavali 2011

The day after dhana trayodasi is naraka chaturdashi. On this day we prepare sweets in the morning & at eve we take a head bath & offer the sweets to god. My parents also have a custom of "Dubbi kottadam". I don't know how to translate in english as it is typically a tradition where you hang big oily threads to a cut gongura/roselle stems & lit them in front of the house. We pat them to ground till the fire goes off. This is typically done to remove the dishti or evil eye to the house. Then later we enjoy the sweets which are offered to god & also will do some fire cracking too.

Deepavali 2009

Where I'm living we generally decorate our house day before deepavali & setup for pooja the next day. Deepavali day we do Laxminarayana pooja in the morning & in the eve we do Dhana lakshmi pooja. We offer god maha neivedyam/prasad in the morning & a sweet with besan for the evening pooja.

Deepavali 2006

In the eve after dhana lakshmi pooja we decorate out side of our house with lots of oil lamps & do the fire crackers. It is also said that you have to lit at least one fire cracker on this day to celebrate the victory of god.

Deepavali 2011

Day after deepavali on padyami the auspicious month " Karthika masa " starts & the month is a festivals to me. There are so many important festivals starting with mondays, nagula chavithi, ksheerabdhi dwadashi & karteeka pournami. At end of the month we leave floating oil lamps in a plantain stem @ a near by lake, river or at least in a bucket.

I hope that you all have enjoyed my festive preparation series for Blogging Marathon. Staying away from home country cuts out lots of traditional possibilities while celebrating a festival.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Sravanamasam, the 5th month of hindu calendar is an auspicious month. Varalakshmi vratam falls on 2 friday of this month or the friday before poornima & Maha Lakshmi Devi is worshiped as Vara lakshmi devi on this day. This pooja is performed by married & unmarried women for prosperity, wealth & happiness.

For this festival we start preparations with purchasing of any gold ornaments or at least a lakshmi roopu or lakshmi kasu a few days ahead of the festival.Cleaning the house is common in all festivals. Apart from that the preparations start one day ahead with arranging the pooja items. Few of the must have items on the list are flowers, fruits, coconut, turmeric, kum kum, toram & prasadam for goddess.

Setting up for pooja.

On the pooja day we wake up early in the morning take head bath & will prepare for pooja. Initially we arrange the goddess with flowers, ornaments & any new jewelry bought can be kept near goddess.

Pooja starts with lighting the deepam & pooja will take around 30 to 45mins. I have a CD of pooja procedure & I'm following the same for year's.{For pooja procedure you can get a CD or a printed book that are available in Indian book stores.}

For initial prasadam we offer paanakam, vada pappu, coconut & fruits. Later for the main prasadam which will be a elaborated one includes a sweet pongal, pulihora, gaarelu, boorelu, dal, curry,rice & curd. Usage of onion and garlic is restricted for prasadam. {List of items might vary but pulihora & a sweet dish are a must.} It is believed that we should offer lakshmi devi a sweet made of channa dal on this day. Besan related sweet dishes are also good to offer as prasadam for goddess.

Preparing toram is part of the pooja. It is made of 9 threads & turmeric is applied to it. Toram should consists of 9 knots and it is kind of a 9knot garland with flowers and leaves. We perform pooja to toram & can wear it right away.

The important part of pooja is Vaaina Daanam. I generally offer the first vaainam to goddess & then to anyone who is present at the time of pooja. Later will invite friends that evening & offer them taambulam & prasadam.

I wish everyone a Happy Vara Lakshmi Vratam & may goddess shower you with her blessings.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Vighna nivarana Vinayaka/Ganesha birthday is celebrated as Vinayaka Chaviti / Ganesha Chaturthi.Vinayaka is also know as the leader of gana's and is prayed for all success in our life. This festival which falls in month of bhadrapada masa is celebrated by Indians all around the world.This festival is celebrated for 11days & at the end we do nimarjana of ganesha.

This festival is also special to me as my grand mother whom I called "Ammaji" was born on this day.She is the grand mom no one can never ever replace.

Coming to todays post for Blogging Marathon festive preparations my Vinayaka chaviti preperations will generally start 2 to 3 days ahead of his birthday. Cleaning home is a main part of the all festivals.Generally I make Vinayaka @home with clay so to do that I have to start with dusting, cleaning & decorating the house just before the festival day. Once the house is clean I will start preparing for pooja the next day.I make Lord Ganesha @ home with clay as shown below.This year I made ganesha & styled him with crystals.

Later the important part of pooja is mandapam & paalavelli. In USA it is hard to get palavelli so I generally make it with new store bought sticks & apply turmeric to it.Later will decorate it with leaves, flowers and fruits.For mandapam many Indian households have a wooden one if not you can replace it with a wooden table which you have never used before. I get birthday caps & use them as a replacement of chatram.

Next comes the pooja items those are flowers, fruits,betel leaves,mango leaves, kum kum, turmeric, sindhoor, sandal wood powder, akshata etc..In andhra pradesh we generally get 2 ganesha's as one is made of pure black mud (Banka matti or Putta matti) second we get a nice colored ganesha. But the main pooja goes for matti vinayaka & turmeric vinayaka. On festival day we make a tumeric vinayaka for pooja and also a small vinayaka with clay.

As we are all ready with the arrangements of pooja we look for a good time with no rahu kalam & yama gandam on the day & perform pooja to god.We keep books, resumes & laptops while doing pooja.Coming to prasadam or mahanaivedyam I mainly offer Undarallu or Kudumulu along with rice, curries,dal,curd & sweets.

In India we invite guests to house to see ganesha & offer them prasadam & tamboolam.The ganesha chaturthi pooja goes on for next 11days & then nimarjanam. For the next 11days we perform pooja to lord & offer him prasadam like fruits or home made sweets.In general you are suppose to do the nimarjana on odd days & not on tuesday & friday. So calculating according to that we do nimarjana of god. Here is USA we do nimarjanam @sea which is very near to us.The turmeric Ganesha is made to a paste and is applied to kids books & laptops.

The festive preparations may vary from one state to other but the Lord we all worship is same.Recipe for UndaralluYields 11 balls

Ingredients1 Cup uncooked rice1/2 Cup channa dal 2&1/2 Cups water1 Tbs jeera1 Tbs gheeSaltMaking Broken riceFirst method: To make undarallu we need broken rice. So to make that take rice & grind it coarsely.Second method: In this method we wash the rice & dry it on a clean cloth. Allow it to dry for 8hrs. Rice will be very delicate & it's easy to coarse grind rice.Making UndaralluNow take the broken rice, channa dal, jeera,water & salt in a pressure cooker. Cook on medium heat for 2 whistles. Switch off heat & allow it to cool.Take the cooked rice mix on to a plate.(Rice mix will be very hot so be careful while handling it.).Rub little ghee to your hands & take a scoop of rice mix. Roll it in to a ball.Repeat the same with rest of rice mix.

Monday, August 31, 2009

It's almost been a week we all have celebrated Ganesh Chaturdhi and festival is coming to an end with Ganesh Nimarjana too.We celebrated Ganesh Chaturdhi in a big way with couple of guests and lots of recipes too.

Behalf of Ganesha's birthday it was a very auspicious day for me as it was my Grand Mother's birthday too...

Like every year I have made a Idol of Ganesh using Clay.It came out verywell than the last year one. I thought of Putting some clothes to him this year so got a satin ribbon from Dollar Store and made a dress with it...

Here comes my Ganesha Pics...

It took me two days to make Ganesha.Usually I will be on fasting when I'm making Ganesha.

He was all set for the pooja.

Used Chop sticks for making the palavilli and covered it with some decorative garlands got from Dollar tree.